This invention relates to dispensing of currency.
Currency dispensers are found, for example, in automatic teller machines (ATMs), including those for so-called off-premises use (for example, at an airport, grocery store, or other location not controlled by a financial institution).
A typical currency dispenser includes a removable money box called a cassette. A stack of currency is loaded into the cassette and then delivered to and loaded into the dispenser.
The dispenser receives signals from control circuitry in the ATM when a user asks for cash. The signals could, for example, instruct the dispenser to dispense $300 in $20 bills to the user.
The dispenser includes paper transporting mechanisms that remove the needed number of bills from the money box, one after another. Each removed bill is fed along a paper path to a position at which the bill is ejected to the outside world, where the user can reach it. The dispenser then signals the control circuitry in the ATM that the needed number of bills has been dispensed.
The sheets of currency that are stacked in the money box sometimes stick together and cannot be easily separated for dispensing. So-called double detection devices are provided in dispensers to detect when more than one paper bill has been removed from the stack. The multiple bills are then discarded into a second money cassette for later pickup, rather than being dispensed to the user.
A typical currency dispenser is constructed of metal pieces, shafts, and bearings that are assembled by a lengthy sequence of steps.